Location: Branhal Time: Morning to Evening, Day 3
The third morning after his arrival in Branhal began with the smell of ash and sour milk.
Alec stood barefoot outside the healer's hut, arms crossed, watching as the village slowly woke. Men trudged toward the fields, hoes slung over shoulders, while women gathered buckets near the well. The same rhythm he'd witnessed yesterday—and the day before.
Repetition. Comfort. Inefficiency.
He heard someone approach behind him, soft steps on dew-wet earth.
"You're up early again," Mira said, wrapping a scarf around her hair.
"Barely slept."
"Pain?"
"Just thoughts."
She stepped beside him, glancing at his face. His eyes were distant, focused somewhere far beyond the smoke curling from nearby chimneys.
"You're thinking about the watermill."
"I'm thinking about everything," Alec replied. "The stone alignment. The way their carts aren't balanced properly. The way your forge loses too much heat per hour. The angle of the village well is wrong—if they dug it five degrees west, they'd have less silt."
Mira smirked. "I meant, you're overthinking again."
Alec exhaled through his nose. "It's hard not to. There's so much… potential here. So many things that could be better."
Mira nodded. "But only if people let them be better."
And that was the heart of it.
Midday – A Taste of Curiosity
He wandered through the village under a soft blue sky, not as a stranger now, but not yet as one of them. Children no longer hid when he passed, though their mothers still watched him carefully. Alec greeted each person with a measured calm, offering help when he could.
At the carpenter's workshop, he lifted beams that two men struggled to carry. At the weaver's stall, he adjusted the tension on a loom, producing smoother thread. At the stables, he calmed a spooked mare with an unnatural patience that drew raised eyebrows.
By noon, whispers followed him again—but this time with a different tone.
"Strong, isn't he?""Fixed Mira's roof last night. Quiet about it too.""Maybe he is touched by something.""Not a god, but not just a man either."
He stopped at the edge of the market square, where Elna, a sharp-tongued woman in her forties, sold bread near the well. She squinted at him as he approached.
"You're the one with all the clever talk," she said, folding her arms.
"I try to be useful," Alec replied.
"Useful, he says." She sniffed. "Silla says you're dangerous. Harwin says you might be needed. I say you haven't done anything that proves either."
Alec gestured to her cartwheel, which tilted slightly under the weight of a flour sack.
"Your axle's cracked."
Elna blinked. "What?"
"If you keep stacking it like that, it'll split and ruin your whole wheel. I can fix it."
She narrowed her eyes. "You expect coin for that?"
"No. But if I help, maybe tomorrow when I ask for something, you'll listen instead of whisper."
She studied him for a beat. "Fair enough."
Later – The Knife Edge
At dusk, Alec was walking back toward the healer's hut with a small coil of braided wire he'd fashioned from scrap metal when he felt it—the watching.
He paused near the fence where the goat pens bordered the path. Behind a haystack, Old Garric leaned on his cane, chewing a stem of barley between his few remaining teeth.
"Didn't expect you to be skulking," Alec said without turning.
"I don't skulk," Garric rasped. "I watch."
Alec faced him. "And what do you see?"
"A man who hides sharp teeth behind friendly words."
"That's dramatic."
"Not if it's true," Garric said. "You move like someone trained. You think fast. Too fast. You don't pray. You fix what isn't broken. People forget that when something breaks, it gives purpose to those who fix it. You start fixing everything too quick, you take power from the wrong people."
Alec folded his arms. "And which people are those?"
"People who keep this place running," Garric muttered. "Silla. The blacksmith. Harwin, even. You stir the dust too much, someone's bound to choke."
"I don't want their power."
Garric hobbled closer, one cloudy eye narrowed. "That's the problem. You don't want it, but you'll take it anyway—just by being what you are."
They stood in silence as the wind shifted.
"I won't be your enemy, Garric," Alec said at last.
Garric spat the barley stalk onto the dirt. "You don't get to choose that."
Evening – A Question of Belonging
Back at the healer's hut, Mira stirred a pot of lentils while Alec leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
"You're making waves," she said without turning.
"Garric thinks I'm a threat."
"He thinks everyone's a threat. Especially people who don't play by the rules."
"I'm not here to follow rules. I'm here to help."
"Sometimes those are the same thing," Mira replied. "Sometimes they aren't."
Alec didn't reply. He watched the firelight flicker across her face, how her eyes narrowed when she was focused. Not just pretty — precise. Her hands moved with the surety of someone used to life and death in small doses.
"You believe in something, don't you?" she asked quietly.
He looked up.
"You keep saying you're not a god. That you don't belong here. But you haven't run. You haven't tried to build a temple or demand worship. So what is it? What drives you?"
Alec was quiet for a long time.
"I believe," he said slowly, "that if I die in this world without trying to change it... then I never deserved to survive in the first place."
Mira's stirring slowed. The fire crackled.
"Big belief for one man."
"Big world," Alec said. "And right now, it's small. Too small. Trapped in its own ignorance."
She finally turned, eyes soft but serious. "You're going to burn something down, aren't you?"
"Only what needs to be replaced."
She studied him for a moment longer, then passed him a bowl. "Eat before you burn the soup too."
That Night – Wordless Shifts
After dinner, Alec wandered through the quiet village.
No one stopped him.
Some nodded. Some looked away. A few followed him with their eyes long after he passed.
Back in Mira's hut, as he sat on the cot and unlaced the sandals Jorren had lent him, she handed him a folded cloth.
"What's this?"
"Shirt I stitched together for you. Won't last long. But you look less like a madman in rags when you wear something we recognize."
Alec unfolded it. Rough cloth. Coarse stitching. But careful. Purposeful.
"You didn't have to."
"No," she said. "But you didn't have to carry an old woman's cart axle halfway across the square either. Or fix Silla's boot latch when it caught yesterday."
He glanced at her. "You notice everything, don't you?"
She leaned against the doorframe. "And so do you."
He stood. The two stood there in silence. The room flickered with firelight, and outside, the wind whispered across the thatched roofs.
"Goodnight, Alec."
"Goodnight, Mira."